


Yokai To Be Kidding Me!

by TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard



Category: TREASURE (Korea Band)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Bromance, Fantasy, Friendship/Love, M/M, Spooky, Yôkai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:29:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25613611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard/pseuds/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard
Summary: They hunt for yokai.Every now and then, yokai hunt for them.
Relationships: Hanada Asahi & Takata Mashiho
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	Yokai To Be Kidding Me!

There are times--not often, but often enough to be unsettling--where Asahi looks into a mirror and sees something other than his reflection. He sees a little bit past his own face. A little bit past the room that he’s in. And maybe he looks into a little bit of  _ someplace else _ .

Most of the time, the changes are subtle. Like a trick of the light. Remnants of a bad dream. Or too much sugar in his system making him see things out of the corners of his eyes. Other times, what Asahi sees is extremely clear and not even a reflection at all. It’s like he’s peering through a window into another world. He sees other cities. Mountains and lakes. A crowd of people’s faces. Fantastical places he’s never seen before. Jagged shapes like a dark forest. Two glowing red eyes staring at him unblinking from the shadows. 

One time, there was only blackness. An awful, cold void staring back at Asahi like it could see down to his soul.

Asahi can never quite put an exact name to what he sees, as the visions are there and gone, there and gone. Like dreams. But he’s sometimes left with that prickly, vibrating sensation at the back of his skull that whatever he saw was frightening. And possibly coming for him.

Like now. 

There's a loud clatter from right next to him and he snaps out of it.

Asahi’s heart races and he wants to scream out of panic but he reminds himself to breathe and to name the things around him. To ground himself like his high school counselor taught him.  _ Come on, Asahi _ , he thinks.  _ Pull yourself together! _

A breath in. A breath out.

His nerves settle.

He looks around.

Alright. He’s in the small hallway bathroom at home brushing his teeth. He knocked a bottle of cucumber melon hand soap into the sink. That was the startling clatter that he heard. Most importantly, the only thing in the mirror is a reflection of his own face. 

Good.

He calms down. Whatever he had seen can't hurt him. Not here. Not yet.

Someone’s calling him. He feels it in the air more than he hears it in his ears.

“Asahi!” 

Yes, that's him. Hamada Asahi. He’s right here. Not wherever the mirror was trying to show him. 

“Asahi!” 

It’s his mother calling him.

His mom has this drawn-out, musical way of saying his name whenever she’s irritated. It's a contradiction that always fooled him growing up but at least now, he knows it when he hears it.  _ Asahi, why did you leave your dirty dishes in the sink? Asahi, didn’t I ask you nicely to stop leaving your wet clothes in the washing machine? _ All in the same tone a normal person would say  _ It’s so sunny out today, I should have used more sunscreen _ . “A-SA-HI!”

Only then does he seem to jolt all of the way back into his good senses. “Yes, mom? What is it?” He nearly chokes. His mouth is still full of toothpaste.

She shouts back from the living room, “Why is Mashiho here?” She’s trying to sound cordial and kind but Asahi can hear the mild hints of annoyance. She doesn’t like to be bothered during the mornings. Especially when she doesn’t have work. Not before her coffee, at least. Definitely not before her yoga. Certainly never before her hour-long bubble bath. Based on her tone, Mashiho must have gotten here before all three of those things. What a champ. She trills, “Why is he  _ here _ ?”

Asahi spits the toothpaste out of his mouth. “I don’t know,” he calls back. Why  _ is _ he here? Did that trance with the mirror last longer than usual? Has he lost hours of his day? Asahi recalls that the two of them were supposed to hang out but not until the evening. Unless it  _ is _ the evening. On the edge of the sink is Asahi’s phone. He taps the screen and it displays the time. Relief shoots through him. It’s just after seven in the morning which is ridiculously early for Mashiho’s standards. He’s never out of bed this early. Let alone dressed and at Asahi’s house. Even when it’s not summer and they have school to get to. Asahi checks his chat messages but Mashiho hasn’t texted him since last night. A thought clicks into Asahi’s head. He leans out of the doorway and into the hall so he can better be heard, “He might need some kind of help.” 

“Well…” His mother pauses, trying to come up with something to say that won’t sound too rude if Mashiho overhears. “Well…” she starts again, having figured out what to say, “... _ attend _ to him, please.”

Leaving his teeth half-brushed, Asahi rinses his mouth out and exits the bathroom, padding up the hall barefoot. 

It’s a small house, to say the least. Not quite a dump but still a far cry from any sort of luxury.

In the center of the living room, his mother is sprawled out on her yoga mat, limbs twisted up into a position that's  _ supposed _ to be relaxing. “Inhale red, exhale blue,” she chants. She’s cut her hair again. Even shorter. It’s barely past her ears now. She senses Asahi standing in the archway and turns her head. “I wish you didn’t hang out with that menace.” She says it in the same monotone syllables as her chanting so Asahi almost doesn't pay attention.

He says, “He’s not a menace.” 

It’s hard to tell if she hears him or not because she’s already back to meditating.

Asahi crosses the living room and barely manages to unlock and push open the front door when Mashiho grabs his arm and lunges towards his ear. “We’ve gotta go. Now. Now!” His whispered voice is urgent. Sharp.

“What is it?” Asahi asks. He still feels like he’s dreaming a bit and squints his eyes as the empty August sky above them brightens with daylight. However, Asahi spots nasty looking clouds on the horizon. Rain. “What’s wrong? Why are you here so early?”

Mashiho makes a big show of jerking his head in Asahi’s mother’s general direction. “I’ll tell you on the way.”

School doesn’t start back up for another week. “On the way to where?”

“Just get the hell out here.”

Asahi steps out into the front yard and swings the door closed behind him. He hadn’t put on his shoes so the lonely stone step in front of the door is as far as he’s willing to go. The grass in the yard is starting to brown from the lack of rain and it’s still not cold enough yet for the trees to start losing their leaves. It is cold enough, however, for Asahi to fold his arms in front of his chest for warmth. “I’m out here. Now what,” he asks.

Mashiho just looks at him like he should know already. 

When he doesn’t volunteer an explanation, Asahi asks, “Did something happen?”

“You won’t believe it even if I told you.” Mashiho keeps his voice low and emotionless like he’s worried Asahi’s mother is eavesdropping through the door. “Come on.” He steps back and jerks his head towards the gate at the front of the house, motioning his friend to follow.

Asahi draws back. When Mashiho said they had to go now he didn’t realize that meant  _ now _ . “Hold on, hold on, let me get my shoes.”

“It’s a time-sensitive manner so step on it,” Mashiho insists.

Worried, Asahi rushes into the house and speeds back to his room. He glances in the mirror by his desk to make sure he looks decent. His features are smaller and rounder than Mashiho’s. Softer.  _ Handsome _ , he’s been called. He stares at his reflection and is relieved when his reflection--and only his reflection--stares back at him. He could use a shave and maybe more time with a comb but he just keeps moving, grabbing things he may need. His half-empty bag of chips. His wallet. His phone charger. A dog-eared manga. He rummages in his closet for his tiny umbrella. Just in case. He crams everything into his backpack decorated with rock band stickers and then bolts back down the hall.

His mother’s voice sings out to him as he darts into the kitchen to grab an oatmeal bar from one of the higher cabinets. She asks, “Why is he here so early in the- You know what? Nevermind. I need to find my center.” 

Asahi glances over his shoulder as he runs, just in time to see her press her palms together in front of her face. 

In his rush, he nearly walks outside without his shoes on (again) and has to turn around and cram his feet into them before swinging open the door. On the front step, Mashiho is pacing in front of the door, hands stuffed in his pockets and madly chewing on a stick of gum.

“We’ve got to go,” he says as he looks up at Asahi

"What happened," Asahi asks, breathless. It’s not like Mashiho to act like this. He seems antsy and impatient. So unlike his usual easygoing confidence.

Mashiho looks Asahi straight in the eye and says, plainly, "I found the other end of the tunnel." Then his mood changes. He smiles with both rows of his teeth showing, eyes sparkling in the sunlight. Now this is the Mashiho Asahi knows.

“You what,” Asahi asks. His eyes go wide. He feels lightheaded with excitement. “Are you sure?”

Mashiho nods repeatedly. His hair goes everywhere.

“You scared me. I thought…” Asahi stops himself, not wanting to divulge all of his worries. “We've been looking for the other end for weeks. We've searched all over town.”

“That was our mistake,” Mashiho points out. “Going all over the place, I mean. We wasted our time. We looked everywhere except right beneath our feet. Which is odd when you're looking for a shoe.”

Asahi gets what he means instantly. “The skate park.” The one place they’ve spent their whole summer. 

Mashiho nods again. Just once this time. His hair stays in place.

“Ugh, hold on again.” Asahi groans and spins around to his front door. Pushes it back open. He rushes past his mother who is so used to his antics that she doesn’t even look up from the television where the yoga instructor is describing another convoluted pose. Back in his room, Asahi searches his room for even more stuff to cram into his backpack.

You see, Mashiho and Asahi have been documenting the Weird Shit in their town since Asahi moved to the suburbs and the two of them became friends. The tunnel is their most recent discovery. No. They don't mean a subterranean passageway or a concrete tube that goes under the train tracks. This tunnel is different. Special. It’s an interdimensional portal. A gateway, if you will, that can move matter from one place to another place in an instant, no matter the distance. Mashiho and Asahi firmly believe it’s one of many ways the yokai in town get around. One end of the tunnel is at their high school, between the two towering air conditioning units locked up behind a chain-link fence between the library and the gymnasium. They found it just before summer break. As with most yokai-related things, it was dangerous to just  _ leap in _ without knowing where they’d get spit out, so Mashiho had tossed in his shoe and the two of them have been searching all over town for it ever since. 

Asahi packs a flashlight, a folded up map of town with all of their ink pen scribbles on it, his video camera, a notebook full of all of his notes about Weird Shit and, last but not least, his uncle’s compass. His backpack is so stuffed, he doesn’t bother to zip it completely closed.

“Asahi,” his mother’s voice drifts up the hallway, “you left the front door wide open. I wouldn't want bugs getting in.” Asahi doesn’t know if she means actual flies or just Mashiho. 

“Okay, mom,” he shouts back. He’s running out of the door. “See you in a bit.”

“Have a good time,” she calls out, her feet pointed to the ceiling in a handstand. 

Asahi’s moving so fast that he runs straight into Mashiho on the front step. Asahi’s breathing heavy but he’s ecstatic. This is their biggest discovery since school let out for summer. “Are you sure it's at the skatepark?”

“I think I'd recognize my own shoe, Asahi.” 

“It’s in such a public place. How has no one else wandered through it?” Though, really, there’s no way to know whether or not any yokai--or any people--have slipped through the tunnel.

“Get your board and let's go,” Mashiho urges. 

At the corner of the house, between the lime green coil of the garden hose and the half-empty dish of dry food Asahi leaves out for the neighborhood cats is his longboard. It’s tattered and scuffed from months of riding and the wood is covered in all sorts of band stickers. Asahi picks it up and tucks it under his arm, then follows Mashiho across the yard.

He’s left his mountain bike propped up against the iron of the front gate. Matte black. 6-speed. Aluminum frame. Bought with his own money back in June while holding down a part-time job at the recycling center.

“This is going to make us famous, you know,” Mashiho says, popping up the kickstand on the sleek, expensive bike. “We had only been guessing both ends of the tunnel were in town but now it’s confirmed.”

It’s a big Weird Shit discovery but it is far from their first. Two summers ago, when Asahi had first moved out here, the two of them had stumbled across a three-legged amabie on the riverbank. It was a freaky little dude, a grotesque combination of fish and human, sporting a face with bulging fish eyes with gills on the side of its head opening and closing, opening and closing in the air. It was the middle of the night and it didn’t seem to want to leave the shadow of the pedestrian bridge, but Asahi’s camera was decent in low-light situations and the device picked up the amabie’s long black hair and glittery scales clearly enough. The yokai danced back and forth anxiously on its weird leathery legs before ducking out of sight, further beneath the bridge. 

It had been one of the first videos they’d put on their YouTube channel and though it only got a dozen views that first week, the right person on Twitter uploaded a clip of the vid and posted a link. The tweet spread like wildfire and then the forty second video clip got 100,000 views in a day. 

And then more recently, last winter actually, the two of them encountered a kawauso, a mystical river otter that could disguise itself as a scrawny (and maybe a little ugly) human child. Asahi had tried his best to film but the video came out shaky and almost entirely out of focus but viewers could still make out the thing’s malformed human disguise. Its despondent face and tattered clothes, its crooked straw hat. The yokai held out its hand to the two boys, quietly begging. The video’s visuals weren’t much but there was nothing wrong with the audio. Anyone watching could clearly hear it ask the boys “Who am I?” Anyone watching could hear it attempt to imitate the boys, hear it force its frog-croak voice into human words before panicking and taking off into the woods. 

That video was one of their most popular. It hadn’t gone viral online or anything but a lot of people in their town found out about the video and, as a result, found out about Mashiho’s and Asahi’s “silly” yokai hunt. It got to the point where the local news channel interviewed them about the video but the two middle-aged men who asked them questions and shoved cameras into their faces were convinced that the creature in the video was just damn good video editing. They thought the two boys were aiming to become film students at a big-city school and had even offered to help them get scholarships. 

What those news reporters didn’t understand--what most people in their town generally didn’t get, what they fail to really  _ grasp _ \--was that it's all true. 

Yokai. 

They are really out there.

By then, Asahi and Mashiho have walked down the tiny, steep side street in front of Asahi’s house and have reached the wider, flatter main road that cuts through the neighborhood. Mashiho swings his long, skinny leg over his bike and slides onto the seat. He says, "A tunnel is a massive discovery. We’ve been researching these things. Tunnels are a bridge between worlds and we discovered it. Here in our tiny little town. Can you imagine? All of the big-name yokai sites will want to feature us. How much money do you think we're going to get? Hundreds of thousands of yen? Millions? Our YouTube views will spike. We’ll finally make actual ad revenue. What are you going to do with your half of the cash?"

"Start saving up for college,” Asahi deadpans. 

"No. Seriously. What are you going to do with your money?” Mashiho is all smiles, visibly shaking with excitement. 

Asahi rolls his eyes. He’s able to keep such a pipe dream at arm’s length. He can better temper his expectations. It's hard to think about fame, to be honest. They’ve always done this for fun. Not profit. The two of them have been hunting for Weird Shit since they met that day out in the woods. Almost like fate. Like destiny. Asahi with his uncle’s compass in his hand. Mashiho with his biological father’s old field guide. That old notebook told them about all manner of fantastic things and there were even a number of blank pages that encouraged them to find some yokai on their own and document their findings. Working alone, the two boys were strong. Combined they were a  _ force _ . Kirin by the lake. Momojiri in the mountains. Nekomata in the dark alleys of town. 

They quickly filled up the old notebook and then started one of their own.

These last two years have been full of late late nights: Mashiho sneaking over to Asahi’s house under a starlit sky, slipping in through the bedroom window to talk in whispers about yokai. The both of them sprawled out on Asahi’s bedroom floor, huddled over their maps and journals, making notes or creating sketches or recording commentary for their videos. Sometimes they ride out to some remote location on the edges of town to stake out a yokai. Most of the time, they stay up until 4am on school nights writing blog posts and responding to hate comments and naysayers. 

Asahi likes the time he spends with Mashiho. Asahi might even like Mashiho. And he doesn't want any part of what they have to change. Though college is threatening to ruin everything. Their last year of high school is rapidly drawing to a close.

Asahi drags himself out of his thoughts as they start down the road in a hurry, Asahi on his longboard and Mashiho on his bike. 

A stray cat darts across the road in front of them and towards a row of bushes on the right, orange fur caught in the glow of dawn. The two of them pause at the intersection at the base of the hill, check for traffic and then head west, further into town.

It's a small, quaint, unassuming place, like hotbeds of supernatural activity are supposed to be. There's an old, abandoned shrine on top of a hill way up north and, down south, a series of caves in the foothills. Between the mountains and the forests, there’s an almost perfect ecosystem for a huge number of strange creatures to thrive. 

The two of them won't stop until they’ve documented them all. They promised.

“I found my shoe last night, actually,” Mashiho shouts over the roar of their wheels on the asphalt. “While I was out for a ride… but we go through Weird Shit together so I waited until daylight for you. Remember when I called you last night? Not spilling the beans nearly killed me!” Mashiho carves back and forth on his bike down the street, swooping in front of Asahi. Dangerously close. Asahi has to pull back on his skateboard and slow down to keep from catching the bike’s back wheel on his board. Mashiho shouts, “Watch this.” He yanks his bike up onto one wheel, shifts his balance and rides in a wheelie. 

Asahi claps for him. He’s been trying to do that all summer.

They pass by the only twenty-four hour convenience store in town and hook a left. There’s a gap between buildings as they cross a bridge over the river and Asahi spots just a glimpse of the tallest mountain around, most of its great height hidden from view in the morning fog. There’s the briefest of warm breezes blowing from that direction. Asahi shuts his eyes for a sec and inhales to feel the sharpness of the air in his lungs. Then he opens his eyes and stares off into the distance. Beyond the hills and trees, there’s the big highway that leads to bigger cities. Bigger opportunities. The same highway he and his mother rode down to come all the way to a place like this. The highway is just an image in Asahi’s head. An idea. A construct. He knows it’s there, way off that way, but he can’t see it from here.  _ Maybe that’s how Weird Shit is for other people _ , he thinks.  _ They hear about yokai and maybe they think it's true, but since they don’t see it every day…  _

“My dad called me last night for the first time all summer,” Mashiho says as they make a right down a tree-lined street. “Way way way late. Past midnight. It was as if he somehow sensed I’d found the other end of the tunnel.” 

“Did you tell him,” Asahi asks. Mashiho’s biological dad lives far away now. North. Hokkaido. When Mashiho’s mother got the divorce, fed up with the man’s silly yokai-hunting antics, the man had simply taken it as an opportunity to pursue his interests full-time. At least he still keeps up with Mashiho and still occasionally clues the two boys in on Weird Shit rumors and yokai sightings. 

Asahi’s not sure what his own dad does these days.

Mashiho continues their conversation. “I wanted to be sure of what I saw… so I didn’t tell him about the tunnel. Maybe he knew anyway. He was always super intuitive. Could pick up on everything.” Now that the two of them are going slightly downhill, Mashiho has enough speed on him that he can pedal hard and circle around Asahi as they go. 

Asahi says, “Well, we’re going to the park to be sure and then we can tell him together.”

Mashiho nods in agreement as he rolls past but, on his next time around, his expression hardens. “Maybe I’ll show mom our evidence and she’ll finally believe me. Believe us.” He whirls around Asahi again and in the seconds it takes him to do it, his expression darkens further. “Maybe she'll call Dad.”

After riding past their town’s one train station, they reach the fenced-in skate park at last.

“Looks like we have a spectator,” Asahi says as the two of them come to a stop right outside the fence gate. “There's someone already here. Some kid.”

Mashiho is back to his usual, fiery self. As if they never talked about his dad. “It doesn't matter. Nothing gets in the way of Weird Shit. We’re still going to go through the tunnel. Who cares if we disappear in front of his eyes?”

“I care,” Asahi says. And he finds it a little silly, even in his own head, that he’ll show the whole internet Weird Shit but still hesitates to talk about it in front of people he knows in real life. “Where is the other end of the tunnel?” Asahi asks as he pushes open the gate.

"Underneath."

"Underneath what? The ground?” But being friends with Mashiho for so long means the two of them don't always need complete sentences to communicate their thoughts. “Underneath the bleachers,” Asahi gasps as he gets it. “That would explain why no one else has wandered through the tunnel and hurt themselves.” 

“Maybe. Who knows? Let's go make history." Mashiho bikes off towards the center of the park with a loud whoop. 

Far more quietly, Asahi rides after him. 

The guy who is already at the park is on devil-red roller blades, flying over the rails. Moving with the grace of a pro. With his helmet on, it’s difficult to see much of his face. The guy is so in the zone, so focused, that he doesn't see either of the boys until he just about flattens Asahi and has to skid in a wide circle to avoid him. 

All three of them screech to a halt. 

“Hey,” the guy snaps, yanking off his helmet. He’s red in the face, with anger perhaps, but then he seems to…  _ recognize _ Mashiho and his whole demeanor changes. He sort of shrinks in on himself like a turtle. “Hey,” he says again but far more politely. He’s taller than the two of them, especially on his skates, but he ducks his head shyly and looks up at them through the pitch black bangs of his hair. “You're Takata Mashiho, right?”

Mashiho looks at Asahi. His confusion is apparent. Because of their yokai-hunting hobby, they aren’t exactly popular, well-known guys. If anyone in this town knows them, it’s probably through their Weird Shit vid channel.

“You came in first at that bike race a few months back,” the stranger says excitedly. “I watched you on TV.”

Oh. So he's  _ not _ a Weird Shit subscriber. But perhaps that’s a good thing.

“Yeah, I won,” Mashiho mumbles. He runs a hand through his hair and glances down at the asphalt. It’s almost like he's embarrassed. 

Asahi takes a good look at the kid. His hair is a wild mess from being flattened beneath his helmet. Sweat gives a sheen to his acne-scarred face and he has large anime character bandages slapped over his ruddy cheeks. 

“I started biking because of you, you know, ” the stranger says, still gushing at Mashiho.

“Oh that's just swell.” Asahi can tell by Mashiho’s foot tapping that he is dying for a way out of this conversation. Asahi wants to get to the tunnel as well but he’s too amused to speak up. Too endeared by how deeply Mashiho blushes because he’s some kid’s role model all of a sudden. When Mashiho realizes Asahi purposefully refuses to rescue him from the interaction, he sucks in a breath and turns back to the stranger. “I really only bike for fun, though. I’m not trying to be famous for it. Maybe that’ll be your thing.” He reaches out and pats the guy on the shoulder.

Thunder rumbles ominously in the distance.

The kid, he can’t be but sixteen or seventeen or so, finally seems to pick up on the awkward atmosphere. “My name’s Haruto.” He swipes a hand through his hair and then his eyes go wide. “Back in June… I sold you that bike. Wow.” Haruto gestures to Mashiho’s pride and joy. 

It’s clear from Mashiho’s blank face that he can’t recall that moment. 

Haruto turns to Asahi, all puppy-eyed with that endearing, shy grin. “And you are?”

“Asahi,” he blurts out. It feels a little weird to be so informal with someone right out the gate but Asahi gets the distinct feeling that he’s seen Haruto before. Either in a dream or on TV. Or in a mirror.

“Are you a model or something?” Haruto seriously asks, smiling at Asahi. “You’re like an idol.”

Asahi blinks. 

“Well, this is nice and all,” Mashiho interrupts, “but we gotta go.” He kicks off on his bike pedals like something is after him and Asahi struggles to get his weight positioned correctly on his longboard before he can follow Mashiho across the smooth cement. 

“Wait,” Haruto shouts at their backs. “Where are you going?”

They don’t stop to answer him. They just roll to the far side of the skatepark where the old, half-rusted bleachers are set up. 

Years of direct sunlight and the humid, mountain air have turned the wooden seats white and brittle with age. Mashiho grunts as he ducks underneath the bleachers. It’s a tight fit. Made even tighter by the fact that he won’t leave his bike. 

Asahi follows behind, having a much easier time with his longboard tucked under his arm. It's dark, cool and borderline claustrophobic under the bleachers. Cigarette butts, discarded takeout boxes, crushed soda cans and other bits of garbage are all scattered across the flattened dirt and wild weeds. It smells faintly of piss.

“There she is,” Mashiho whispers. “There's my shoe.” He points. 

Asahi has to get up on his tiptoes to see over Mashiho’s shoulder but he can spot Mashiho’s bright red left Converse with its shitty Sharpie doodles all over it.

Asahi remembers watching Mashiho throw that same shoe all those weeks ago. Back on campus between classes, after three days of observing the first half of the tunnel they had found. Asahi remembers how the shoe had disappeared into thin air with a quiet hiss, right in front of their eyes. 

Almost like he's afraid to touch it, Mashiho slowly leans down and yanks his shoe off the ground by the laces. Then he spends a few seconds wiping dirt and grass off of it. It seems to be intact. The tunnel might be safe to use. 

“I think the entrance is between those two metal struts,” Asahi says. It's difficult to see in the half-darkness but the air in front of them looks like it's shimmering like the space above a car hood on a hot day. 

“You sure,” Mashiho asks. “I know how your eyes work. Do you need a few more seconds to focus?”

Slowly, Asahi shakes his head. He can see it. A jagged hole at the far side of the bleachers. An actual  _ tear _ in space. Asahi kind of gets lost in it a little. In the colors. In the swirling patterns. He is only vaguely aware of Mashiho jostling him aside, digging for something in his backpack. The tunnel entrance seems to be pulsing. Like it’s breathing. Mashiho bumps into him particularly roughly, but probably accidentally, and Asahi’s concentration breaks. 

Now it just looks like there’s nothing special under these bleachers again.

“This is really it.” Asahi inhales and then exhales. Like his mom when she meditates. “This is what we've been crawling all over town looking for.”

Mashiho grins. “Make sure to get my good side.” He hands Asahi his video camera, the object he’d been digging out of his backpack.

“Like you have a bad side,” Asahi huffs, dangerously close to a confession. He holds up the camera in front of his face to hide his blush and focuses on making some adjustments to the camera settings to avoid looking at Mashiho’s face. When Mashiho shows up clearly in the low light, Asahi hits the record button. “We're rolling.”

“Weird Shit vlog number one hundred and two,” Mashiho says in a booming, game show host voice. “What do you see behind me?” Dramatic pause. He's speaking to their future YouTube audience. “You may think it's just junk and dirt and the shoddy remnants of counter-culture culture but my friends, I'll tell you, it's none other than an amazing gift of science. Einstein, Tesla and Newton are all crowding around in wonder.” He gestures to the empty space behind him. “Here, we have the entrance to a tunnel, a tear in dimensions that will allow us to teleport. You heard that right! Te-le-port! Mankind can only benefit from such amazing magic and we are here to show you some Weird Shit.” He waves his red Converse in the air and Asahi zooms in on the area the tunnel is located. On the camera’s screen, it looks like nothing but when Asahi peers up over the top of the camera, he can see the tunnel clearly again.

It looks red around the edges. Like something violent happened when it was made. It’s less like a tear and more like a gash. Asahi gasps. Is there… something  _ in _ there? He relaxes his face, lets his eyes lose focus so that he can see what he can’t see. 

Yes. There’s something standing right on the other side of the gash. Not underneath the bleachers with them but elsewhere. In the place between one side of the tunnel and the other. It looks so familiar, those beady animal eyes. Red. Piercing. Whatever it is, it’s massive and Asahi feels like it’s waiting. Waiting for them.

Waiting for  _ him _ .

“What are you guys doing under here?” 

Asahi lets out a startled shout at the sudden sound. It's Haruto. Standing right behind him. Asahi had nearly forgotten all about him. He spins around and points the camera at him. Haruto’s lanky form is just a blurry silhouette until the camera’s autofocus snaps him into sudden clarity. On the screen, he looks normal, but when Asahi glances up into Haruto’s face, he’s positive that the kid’s eyes glow with unnatural yellow light.

He’s a yokai. Or at least part yokai.

And maybe Mashiho sees that too because he bellows, “Go, go, go!”

Asahi turns back around and runs after Mashiho. Holding up the camera with one hand and carrying his longboard with the other is quite the challenge on a regular day, but with the pinching tightness of the sagging wooden seats and rusting metal slats of the bleachers, the task is nearly impossible. 

Asahi stares ahead at the tunnel but he keeps losing his footing and can’t keep the camera in focus. At the very least, he lets his other sight take control and he no longer feels like that massive, malicious presence is waiting on the other side of the tunnel entrance.

Mashiho leaps forward. 

One moment he is there, right in front of Asahi, close enough to grab. 

The next moment he is simply _ not _ . 

Just… gone. 

Asahi follows him through the tunnel. He didn't know what he expected. For gravity to get all wonky? For his body to feel like it's being pulled apart and then thrown back together? For him to go tumbling through some wild, multicolored wormhole? None of those things happen. Going through the tunnel is quick. Painless. Almost completely lacking in fanfare. In less than a blink, he’s simply  _ someplace else _ and falling. 

Asahi screams. 

The ground rushes up to him and he lands flat on his back with a pained groan. His longboard bounces off the ground. Comes careening towards his face. One of the wheels nearly takes his eye out. “Shit,” he exclaims as the wood hits his chest and lands flat on the ground next to him. 

Miraculously, the camera in his hand is unharmed and still recording. 

Asahi sits up and pans the camera around. They’re out in the woods somewhere. That’s all he knows. But they aren’t supposed to be out in the woods. “This isn't the school,” he says. “This isn't behind the library.” He gets no response. “Mashiho? You okay?” Asahi searches the ground around him.

Mashiho is sprawled in the grass a short distance away, bleeding profusely from his nose. His bike is next to him, almost on top of him, and the front wheel is wickedly bent. Unrepairable. Mashiho comes to his senses. He looks up and spots Asahi recording him. He glares. “Turn that thing off,” he commands. “Let's talk.”

Uh oh. He's pissed. Asahi sheepishly turns off the video camera. 

Then Mashiho loses the foul expression and smiles as bright as the sun. “Shit! Asahi! Do you know what this means? Don't you get it?”

Asahi rubs his knee where it is slightly sore. “Get what?” 

“Someone else in this town is deep into this Weird Shit. They moved my shoe in front of a different tunnel for us to find.”

That… can't be accurate. Or plausible. In fact, that’s not even the first thing Asahi was thinking. “We don't know that,” he counters. “Maybe tunnels just share entrances.”

“We never proved your hypothesis. The girl in South Korea we worked with a year ago never proved it. All the tunnels we've heard about function independently of each other. One entrance, one exit. They don't get mixed up.”

“But it's not like tunnels are common,” Asahi says. “It's hard to research things that technically aren’t even for our use.”

Mashiho remains indignant. “What other explanation is there? If we didn't pop out where we expected, then someone moved the shoe. There are  _ two _ tunnels in town and someone out there wanted us to know about both.”

And it shocks Asahi how quickly Haruto’s face comes to mind. He wonders if the image of Haruto carrying Mashiho’s shoe through town is a dream he had, something he glimpsed in a mirror, or some hopeful solution he needs to solve their problem. “Who moved the shoe isn’t a priority.”

“Then what is,” Mashiho asks. “What’s more important than that?”

Asahi thinks about what he saw inside the tunnel. Mashiho doesn’t possess the Sight, so there’s no way he had seen it with his eyes but how on earth did he not  _ feel _ that yokai’s massive, hulking presence? It was ages ago now but it still sends a chill up Asahi’s spine thinking about those red eyes. What would have happened to them if they’d jumped in while it was right there on the other side? But Asahi voices none of those thoughts. He just says, “Nothing.”

That just leads Mashiho to babble on and on about their discovery. Asahi tunes him out and looks around to get his bearings. The trees themselves aren’t particularly helpful when determining their location so he relies on the other landmarks around them. He hears the  _ click-clack click-clack _ of a distant freight train so he knows they must be on the north side of town. When he peers through the trees, he sees the tip of the water tower to his left so that would put them… He orients them with the map of town in his head… As far west as the elementary school. Good. He knows where they are now. They aren’t far from town at all. He pulls his backpack off of his shoulders and digs out one of his pens and their town map. He unfolds it, the paper thin and worn from years of use. Asahi runs his fingers over the map, tracing roads until he gets to where he needs. He draws a big red dot above the skate park and then draws another dot in the general vicinity of their location. He connects the locations with a long, dotted line and then marks it with a heavy question mark. 

Mashiho comes to the end of his excited ranting. He reaches over and lightly punches Asahi’s arm. “You think that Haruto guy got scared and ran?”

“He'd be smart not to follow us,” Asahi comments. He looks up at Mashiho’s bloody face. “We're the professionals in this field of work and we still got hurt.” He points at his nose. 

Mashiho stops messing with the fucked up wheel of his bike and gingerly touches his own nose. His fingertips come away red with fresh blood and he curses. 

It starts to rain then. A light drizzle. It’s still summer but the water’s freezing cold.

Asahi glances up. Above their heads are the boughs of an ancient tree. An almost perfect hoop of mangled branches and fat green leaves is probably what serves as the tunnel entrance. Yokai like circles for some odd reason. Asahi squints up at the tree branches. It’s hard to tell. He can’t really  _ see _ the tunnel entrance up there but his Sight is still something he can’t properly control.

Mashiho follows his gaze up to the tree branches and then he jumps to his feet. “We have to get up there!”

“That's dangerous,” Asahi tell him. “If Haru--” He doesn’t know that for sure. He corrects himself. “If someone really did move your shoe, then it's even more dangerous to go through an unmarked tunnel because we don't know where it leads. Look at us!” Asahi waves a hand around at the hills and trees that surround them. “We were supposed to be back at school but instead we’re out here. If we go through that tunnel, we could wind up under the ocean or five kilometers above the ground.”

“Unlikely,” says Mashiho, propping his fists on his hips. His clothes are dirty and covered in grass stains from their fall. “I firmly believe yokai have to travel like us humans do. Surely, they wouldn’t put their methods of transportation in such ridiculous places.”

“It’s not like they have to obey any or all laws of physics,” Asahi reminds him with a hint of sarcasm. He pauses. He almost panics when he can’t find his phone in the pants pocket he thought he’d put it in. It’s in his backpack with the rest of his things. “We can’t hunt them like we’d hunt regular animals.”

“I guess. But… We still proved something amazing, though. We have to get to my house and do some editing. We need to post this footage online. Like yesterday.” Mashiho steps towards Asahi and helps him up to his feet. He’s tied his red Converse through one of his belt loops like it’s a fashion accessory. 

The rain falls steadily harder around them. Asahi reaches into his backpack for his umbrella. They huddle together beneath it.

Asahi tries his best to keep the rain off of them as he guides Mashiho back to his bike. 

Mashiho stands it up. He swears again. The front wheel is too badly bent for him to safely ride the bike but it seems like he can walk it relatively fine. They fall into step next to each other and walk in silence for several paces. Then he looks up and catches sight of Asahi’s face. “What’s that long face for? We aren’t through here. There’s an even bigger mystery afoot!” He grins. Wide. Never a good sign. “This is where the fun  _ begins _ , Asahi,” he says with a wink. 

**Author's Note:**

> [cc](https://curiouscat.me/TheSwingbyJHF)


End file.
